EA is arbitrage between the price of life in rich and poor countries
That’s in the “best-case” scenario where this particular claim, made by parties making other incompatible claims, happens to be the true one. I no longer believe such arbitrage is reliably available and haven’t seen a persuasive argument to the contrary.
Given the kinds of information gaps and political problems I describe here, it seems to me that while in expectation they’re a good thing to do with your surplus, the expected utility multiplier should be far less than the very large one implied by a straightforward “diminishing marginal utility of money” calculation.
Sure, in the best case; moreover, as poor countries are becoming less poor, the price of saving life in them is growing. (And one may add that functional market economy is the only known way to make them less poor eventually.)
However, I also think that EA could reach even higher efficiency in saving lives in other cause areas, like fighting aging and preventing global risks.
That’s in the “best-case” scenario where this particular claim, made by parties making other incompatible claims, happens to be the true one. I no longer believe such arbitrage is reliably available and haven’t seen a persuasive argument to the contrary.
Do you not believe GiveDirectly represents this kind of arbitrage?
Given the kinds of information gaps and political problems I describe here, it seems to me that while in expectation they’re a good thing to do with your surplus, the expected utility multiplier should be far less than the very large one implied by a straightforward “diminishing marginal utility of money” calculation.
Sure, in the best case; moreover, as poor countries are becoming less poor, the price of saving life in them is growing. (And one may add that functional market economy is the only known way to make them less poor eventually.)
However, I also think that EA could reach even higher efficiency in saving lives in other cause areas, like fighting aging and preventing global risks.